With a musical legacy stretching back more than 35 years, American rock back Tesla is one of the most well-respected bands on the circuit, performing hundreds of shows a year for throngs of fans who have come to adore and admire the band’s straight-forward, unsullied, undeniably authentic brand of hard rock music.
With concert and radio favourites such as Little Suzi, Gettin’ Better, Edison’s Medicine, Love Song, Modern Day Cowboy, Heaven’s Trail (No Way Out), What You Give and their powerfully compelling live acoustic cover of Signs (originally recorded by Canadian band Five Men Electrical Band), Tesla has developed an ardently loyal fan base, and is consistently in demand as a concert attraction.
Garnering respect from their contemporaries, Tesla has also developed deep friendships with other bands and musicians, one in particular has paid great creative dividends as it led to the creation of the band’s new studio album – Shock – which was released worldwide March 8 in digital and physical formats through UMe.
Tesla has long been considered one of the hardest working touring rock acts on the planet, and it was through lengthy road sojourns alongside fellow road warriors Def Leppard over the years that led to both bands becoming friends. In particularly, it seemed the Def Lep axe master Phil Collen took particular interest in the band, offering far more than just moral support. First, he offered a song to include as a bonus track on a live album. Then he offered to work on new music with the band as a producer.
It was an offer and an opportunity that simply could not be refused, according to guitarist, Dave Rude, the band’s newest member, joining co-founders Brian Wheat (bass/keys) and Frankie Hannon (guitar) and long-time members vocalist Jeff Keith and drummer Troy Luccketta in 2006.
“It all happened very organically. We spent a few years on the road with Def Leppard and we started having a really good relationship with Phil. We did a live record called Mechanical Resonance Live [in 2016] and we were always hanging out with those guys every day, especially Phil, and one day he asked if we wanted a bonus track for that record, a song called Save That Goodness. We thought it was great and recorded it with Phil and it went really well working together, just sort of accidentally. It wasn’t a big plan, but it was really fun,” said Rude.
“After that we thought, ‘what if we actually made a real record where we wrote the songs and Phil produced it?’ And it turned out that we were going to be doing a lot more touring with them and figured we could work on it while we were on the road and kind of come home from the tour and be almost done with the album. That’s basically how it happened. It was really easy to work on it every day at the shows and then come home after the run and be done almost half the record and just have to add drums and vocals in the studio.
“We probably weren’t going to do another record – at least not any time soon. But it just sort of felt right working with Phil. And it was fun, and it was exciting, and we had the physical opportunity to do it because we were in proximity with each other for a couple of years.”
With the advent of mobile digital technology and programs such as ProTools, alongside such a decorated songwriter, musician and producer as Collen, the logistics of recording on the road are easier than one my think.
“We did almost all the guitars, almost all the bass and some of the background vocals and some of the acoustic guitars with Phil on the road. We would go in the dressing room, set up a ProTools rig in the dressing room of arenas around the country and knock out a few hours work before sound check. Or we would do it in our hotel room on days off. And we were recording master tracks, like actual takes instead of just demos, because if we would have gone that route, we would have to have come home on our one month break and then go into the studio for that whole month, and then go back on tour. The record would have taken five years to make,” Rude said.
“It’s only out now, but it’s been done for quite a while. We actually did make it pretty quickly and it was because, for a rock record like this, the bulk of the recording is guitars, so we were able to do a lot of the heavy lifting.”
Collen has been an integral member of Def Leppard since 1982, co-writing some of the band’s biggest hits, including Pour Some Sugar on Me, Love Bites, Hysteria, Let’s Get Rocked, Miss You in a Heartbeat, Slang and many more. He has also written and produced two albums with his side project Man Raze and a blues group called Delta Deep. In other words, his success and pedigree are impeccable.
“Phil was a true producer in every sense of the word. I don’t think we have had that, at least not for a really long time. The last few records we made were really more self-produced than anything. And that’s cool, but I think you always get a better end result with a really good producer because we were able to start with focusing on the core elements of every song before we even started recording,” Rude said.
“And getting all the parts, all the lyrics, all the melodies ready for these songs before we even started recording was so helpful, and then it was just like, ‘well, what’s the treatment going to be?’ Phil’s got such a legacy; he’s written some of the biggest rock songs in history. So, he might say, ‘I think that chorus might be stronger.’ And you pay attention and you go back, and you write a better chorus. He’s really got the track record to say things with authority. If someone else tells you to write a better chorus, but they’ve never written a huge hit, it’s like, screw you, my chorus is better. But Phil has written all of these amazing songs so he’s probably right and you go back and do what he suggests.”
Even though it’s been almost five years since the band’s last studio album, Simplicity, and the Shock is only Tesla’s fourth album since the dawn of the new millennium, Rude said it is important for the band to keep being creative and putting out new material whenever they can.
“One of the upsides to all the tumults in recording and in the recording industry is that it’s now possible to make great sounding records for way less money. Like with Shock, you can do a lot of it mobile now. We were doing it on tour, an that would have been almost impossible in the 1980s and 1990s. So, technology made a big difference,” he said.
“But it’s really to keep us creatively excited and also to keep the band sort of viable and relevant in whatever our niche in the rock world is. Obviously, we’re not on the cover of Rolling Stone; no one is waiting with bated breath for new music, but our fans are, and they want something new. It just keeps it more exciting for us. We could just go out and play the hits, and that’s still 80 to 90 per cent of our set. The older songs are what most people come to see, and we love to play them; they’re great songs. That’s never going to change and we’re only ever going to do a couple of new songs in a set.
“Just having those one or two new songs keeps it really fresh. And we have a lot of really die-hard fans who listen to everything. When we’re playing some older album tracks, they’re singing along to them as much as they are the radio hits and they actually appreciate when we play a new song. With our hardcore fans, no one leaves to go get a beer when we’re playing one of our new songs, which is nice. It keeps it fresh for us and keeps it fresh for fans and for promoters who don’t just lump us in as just another legacy act playing songs from 30 years ago. For our niche and for our genre it really does keep is relevant and viable.”
Tesla is an interesting case. A band that came out at the same time as so-called hair metal was pre-eminent, but was decidedly NOT hair metal in their appearance, nor in the type of music they wrote, recorded and performed. If they had come about in the pre-MTV era, they may have been much larger and more commercially successful, but competing against the likes of Poison, Bon Jovi and countless other video-inspired acts, they did not have the breakthrough that their talent deserved. Yet, the fans they developed during that time, especially over the run of their first three albums: Mechanical Resonance (1986), The Great Radio Controversy (1989) and Psychotic Supper (1991) have stuck with them through a short-lived hiatus from 1996 to 2000, and the varied vicissitudes of the music industry ever since.
“It’s something I used to think about even before I was in the band, when I was just a fan, because I grew up loving Tesla. And even though they came out in the 1980s, Tesla was always more of a 1970s classic rock band that just happened to come out in the 1980s, the same with Guns ‘N Roses. They were really more of a child of Aerosmith and Led Zeppelin than any of the Hair Metal stuff. I love a lot of those bands, but some of it was pretty cheesy and dated – it’s more of a schtick now,” Rude opined.
“Whereas no one laughs at Aerosmith. Tesla was always more in the category of serious and cool. Their stuff always came from a place of blues rock with more organic emotion. And they really embraced the acoustic side of rock, creating a whole acoustic record [1990’s Five Man Acoustical Jam] which had a big impact on the whole industry. A lot of bands, especially in the 1980s, could not have pulled off a live acoustic record that was worth even half a listen. There is a different vibe to the songs. A lot of songs don’t carry over acoustically, but Tesla’s songs were so well written and so well done, that they are. To me as a songwriter, that’s the ultimate test. If it works with one guy and an acoustic guitar singing in your kitchen, it’s a good song. To be able to transpose all these high octane rock things and make them acoustic really shows so much about the band and the quality of the songs.
“And then obviously there’s all the amazing playing, and, I am biased because I am in the band, but I honestly thought this when I was 13, that Jeff Keith has got one of the best voices in the history of rock and roll. I think he is one of the best frontmen in the history of rock and roll. And now I get to be in the band with him, which is pretty much a dream come true. All the guys are so great at what they do. That all combines to make that amazing legacy. Tesla has always been more of a real band, a credible band, as opposed to being a sort of fad, 1980s thing.”
All of this is on prominent display with Shock, which sees the band at their compositional and musical best, highlighted by the incendiary title track, the ebullient road song, California Summer Song, as well as the newest single, Taste Like.
Rude said the band will be hitting the road again this year with their pals in Def Leppard, this summer as well as doing a number of headlining dates of their own throughout North America. They are also hitting a bunch of top European festivals later in the year.
For more information on tour dates, including some stops in Canada with Def Leppard, the new album and other news, visit https://teslatheband.com.
- Jim Barber is a veteran award-winning journalist and author based in Napanee, ON, who has been writing about music and musicians for a quarter of a century. Besides his journalistic endeavours, he now works as a communications and marketing specialist. Contact him at jimbarberwritingservices@gmail.com.
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